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Stew & Soups Week: Week 2 Of BigBarn’s Food Weeks

The mighty soup and they hearty stew. Winter’s two perfect warmers that come in all colours and flavours and perfect for the post Christmas budget and diet.

What a great food, cold, hot, sweet or sour, a starter or main course, soup has it all. Soup can use up leftovers, or provide a great way to detox as included in last weeks post.

Soup can be a gastronomic dish or a pauper’s feast and one of the easiest meals to make. In these times of austerity and obesity everyone should know how to make soup and I am amazed that someone has not set up soup making demonstrations at food banks to help those less fortunate cook nutritious meals on a very low budget. Likewise all school children should know how to make at least 2 varieties of soup.

At last the amount of space supermarkets devote to tinned soup has reduced as tinned soup is going out of fashion. Hoorah when we are running short of metal and oil. See previous blog here. And when the ingredients are so high in sugar and salt.

Fresh local veg

Yes it nice to have nursery food like Heinz tomato in the larder but crazy when the same product could be made at home for a fraction of the price and have a tiny amount of sugar and salt compared to the tinned version.

So please have a go at making soup. Find out what is cheap and in season at your local farm shop, chop, in to a saucepan, add some water or stock, and heat up, leave chunky, mash or blend and, heh presto, soup! Or click here to follow a recipe for all kinds of yummy soup meals.

Another of winter’s mighty meals is of course a hearty stew. Big chunks of meat and veg all cooked together to fill you up and keep you warm. The best thing about stews is being able to cook for hours leaving you to put your feet up with the rest of the family and relax until dinner time.

The mighty onion, perfect in a winter stew

They are not just great winter warmers though, a good stew is the perfect way to use up cheaper cuts of meat, left overs and slightly turning vegetables which in turn helps you save your precious coins, especially after Christmas. You can feed many mouths on a tasty stew and they are full of much needed vitamins to fight off nasty winter bugs.